We are delighted to announce the makers that have been selected for our Craft & Design Business Mentoring.
Creative Kernow Associates, in partnership with New Creatives Cornwall and funded by Cornwall Council, are running free mentoring for eight early-career practitioners working in craft and design. The programme runs between September and December 2026, and is aimed at new entrants to the craft and design industries who want to develop their creative practice and explore the business and commercial side of their work.
We are pleased to announce the following practitioners who have been selected for the programme. The participants will be working with lead mentor Tara Ashe, as well as other guest mentors.
Top image of work by Leach Pottery at London Design Fair 2018, taken by We are Ronin
Anna Corinda Ceramics
I’m Anna, a small-batch potter from Falmouth. I’ve been playing with clay for over six years, but it wasn’t until 2026 that I finally found the confidence to sell my work. I now dedicate my time to developing my skills on the potter’s wheel, alongside exploring glaze chemistry and firing techniques.
Every glaze is handmade from raw materials in my little home studio. I adore the recipes I return to time and again — from reactive floating blues to soft rutile and copper glazes — which come alive against my favourite dark stoneware clay, reflecting the Cornish seascapes that have surrounded me since childhood.
Catherine Lovett
Catherine, a Cornwall based artist and printmaker, creates colourful and contemporary artworks, using traditional hand printing techniques. After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2003, Catherine embarked on a successful career working in costume for film and T.V. Her time is now split between film sets across the country and her art studio in Cornwall. Catherine draws inspiration from her surroundings, sketching and collecting all her reference works on location. No digital process or photographic references are used. Each print is truly unique, combining lino and screen print, produced in small batches, by hand in Cornwall.
Cornish Tiddlers
My technique started when I made carnival costumes from everyday packaging for my children, calling them ‘Cornish Tiddlers’. This was the ‘seed’ of an idea for a process I have developed. I love the fact that items become something entirely new.
Plastic bags, sweet wrappers and soft plastic waste materials all feature. Melted safely, then embellished using my sewing machine, I make multi-layered polyfusion work. A long-standing recycler, I now re-purpose materials, unrecognisable from their original form. Stitching and tetra pack printing are key techniques and reflect my signature style- a visual acknowledgement of the microplastics now within our seas.
Dark Shining Wolf
Dark Shining Wolf is the alter ego of artist Melanie Stidolph. This first collection of scarves; Treyarnon, Kennack Sands and Trenoweth, feature stills from her 16mm films of Cornish pools, rocks and quarries.
Inspired by Ascher (London) Ltd, who commissioned artists in the 1940s to design artist squares; including Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth (a great headscarf wearer herself).
Scarves are for dressing up, for taming your hair and matching with your dog, or human. Designed in Cornwall, printed in London on silky fabric made from recycled plastic bottles. Dark Shining Wolf artist squares are sewn in small batches in Melanie’s studio at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives and sent with delight.
Jessica Balla
Jess Balla is an illustrator and mural artist. Her practice centres around her love for the ocean and her connection to the ‘more than human world’. These are often combined with community stories and her interest in music, to create colourful, bold and playful imagery, from prints and greetings cards to painted objects and walls.
She works closely with clients on commissioned projects, collaborating on environmental and community-led work as much as possible. Being active outdoors is integral to her creative process: surfing and swimming in the sea, and hiking mountains in her homeland of North Wales, all the while catching ideas in small sketchbooks, sometimes whilst in motion.
Painting and hand lettering work are becoming ever more valuable to her practice in this screen-based age.
Loveday Deighton
Loveday Deighton is a multidisciplinary designer-maker from Cornwall who creates automata, mechanisms, and kinetic sculpture. Working primarily with paper and simple handmade mechanisms, she creates small-scale sculptures that explore movement and interaction. Since graduating from Falmouth University, she has worked with local designers on fabrication and design projects while developing her own creative practice. Loveday is currently expanding her work by combining CAD and 3D printing with traditional automata craft to create accessible kinetic toy kits.
Thread Pegs
Laura is the founder and sole maker behind Thread Pegs, a handmade sewing storage and tools business based in Falmouth, Cornwall. As a sewist herself, she knows first-hand how useful these products are, and she designs every piece with real sewing habits in mind. Each organiser and tool is crafted by hand from birch plywood in her home workshop, combining practical function with a quality of finish that mass-produced alternatives rarely match. Running everything herself, from making to marketing, Laura has built a loyal following among sewists who value durable, beautifully made essentials that make their craft easier and more enjoyable.
Weaver Rae
Rae is a self taught handweaver with a studio in Mawnan Smith. From here she calls on inspiration from the sea and landscapes of west Cornwall to create traditionally designed and made blankets, cushions and blanket scarves, as well as smaller pieces. She works on a loom built by her partner, and works with a lot of natural undyed wool, as well as some blues, browns and plant-dyed colour.
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